During the 2016 Presidential campaign, Donald Trump introduced a slogan that continues to be his trademark well into his presidency, “Make America Great Again.” This slogan indicates that the President is looking back at America’s history, and seeing a time in which America reached its peak, and that he wants to return it to that status. So, on my talk show, I asked my audience, “When was America at its greatest? If you could go back in time and live at any point in America’s history, where would you go?”

What I found was that my audience tended to look back on their adolescent and young adult years as the best years in America’s past. Those who came of age in the 1950s wanted to go back to the 1950s. After all, everything was cheap, good jobs were easy to find, and it was so easy to dance to Buddy Holly and the Crickets. Those who were in their 40s and 50s tended to gravitate toward the 1980s… the years they were in high school or college. Again, good music, good movies, the country was prosperous, and times were simpler. My 30-somethings liked the 90s. Same themes… good music, good movies, prosperous times and a simper life.

Everyone longs for the “good ole days,” but were the “good ole days” really that good?

Sure, the 1950s provide a good postcard for freedom and prosperity in post-war America. Hamburgers, Homes, Cars and Rock and Roll. However, the 1950s were not a good decade for the African-American community, who, having come home after fighting the war, found themselves once again being locked out of the new American prosperity. Hence, Dr. Martin Luther King’s statement that in a sea of prosperity, African-Americans found themselves on an island of poverty.

Furthermore, the 1950s saw an increasing threat from the spread of communism, war on the Korean peninsula, an ever-growing threat of nuclear annihilation, polio, and a political system that was rapidly becoming more volatile. People living in the 1950s lived under the constant threat of instantaneous and unexpected annihilation. Yet, they continued with life, and look back on those days with happy memories.

The 1980s saw American prosperity and good culture as well. Like the 1950s, there was even a Spiritual revival. Yet, the 1980s saw the last great standoff with the Soviet Union, manufacturing being outsourced, costing American jobs, AIDS, crack, homeless veterans, a mental health crisis, the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion, inner-city gang violence, and the rise of drug cartels.

The 1990s saw all of that, along with the emergence of the internet, the rise in global terrorism, domestic terrorism, mass shootings, job outsourcing, and the economic boom sparked in the 80s began to unravel. Plus, we were cursed with NSync and the Backstreet Boys.

Don’t get me wrong. Being a teenager in the 1990s was loose and carefree. So was being a teenager in the 1980s. Heck being a teenager in the 1950s was an okay proposition. But, the fact of the matter is that we can neither return to those decades, nor can we become teenagers again. Even if we could, we’d be disappointed to find that major problems existed, even back then.

To live the human life is to live with problems. They’re numerous, and they’re critical. As Agent K said in Men In Black, “There’s always an Arquillian Battle Cruiser, or a Corillian Death Ray, or an intergalactic plague.” The key to finding the peace and serenity you seek in returning back to the glory days is to understand that, and to be able to live your life in spite of that. The key to doing this is to understand that God is in control of all things, and that you can trust Him to manage the uncontrollable events of your life.

If you master this, and if you learn to be thankful for the good things in your life, you will always be living in your glory days, regardless of your age, or what decade it is.

There are two words I was never allowed to say when I was in school, “Yeah, but….”

The words, “Yeah, but…” usually accompanied an excuse I had for a misbehavior, a bad decision, or a reasoning for why the other kid should be in worse trouble than me. In fact, in my mind, the other kid’s behavior was often so much worse than mine, that my infraction should be excused.

“Leland, did you just throw that paper ball at Billy?”

“Yeah, but…”

“No ‘buts.’ Out in the hall!”

I never got the opportunity to explain that I threw the paper ball at Billy because he made faces at me, pushed me into the dirt on the playground, or drew an ugly picture of me on manilla paper during art class. Nope. In this instance, the only thing that mattered was that I had violated class rules by throwing the paper ball at Billy, and so I had to face the consequence. Had I followed the correct course of action before throwing the paper ball, like telling the teacher that Billy was bullying me, then I would not be in trouble.

For what it’s worth, my story about Billy is a summary of several elementary school experiences rolled into one with a pseudonym of Billy as my adversary. I digress.

Public discourse today, whether social or political, is largely driven by the concept of “yeah, but.” For example:

Lost in all the “Yeah, buts…” is the truth. There is a standard of morality, a standard of behavior that we are right to expect from one another, especially when one’s actions affect the livelihood and well-being of another. However, the tribalization of America has led to a mentality of “winners and losers” where we feel the need for our side to be the winners, no matter the effect on everyone else. And this is what will ultimately pull our country apart.

Nowhere can this be better illustrated than the case of Elwood School Superintendent Casey Smitherman, whose decision to seek medical treatment for a student while filing it on her insurance led to her facing criminal charges and ultimately led to her resigning her position with the school.

She didn’t get permission from the boy’s guardian or parents to take him from the house, cart him around town and seek medical care for him.

The superintendent was alone with the teen in a car, a major no-no for school staff and administrators.

She committed fraud by claiming that the boy was her son so that she could use her health insurance to defray the $233 bill for the clinic’s care and antibiotics.

She didn’t report her suspicion that the boy was suffering from neglect. School staff and others who come into contact with youth through their jobs are required by state law to report such suspicion.

These are very serious infractions, not only on a technical level, but on a moral level as well. Yet, the internet is reacting to her actions by lauding her as a hero, and criticizing “big insurance,” Trump, Congress and the Republican Party for what happened.

Instead of looking at the entirety of the case, most of the internet is focusing on the fact that she took a kid to the doctor… and who wouldn’t want to see a kid taken care of? Therefore, she should be a hero.

However, the morality of Smitherman’s benevolence went out the window the second she shifted the cost of her humanitarianism to others, that is, those who pay premiums to her insurance company. When you consider that the cost of the care could have counted against her annual deductible and/or out of pocket expenses, you might even be able to make the case that her actions were a little self-serving.

If Smitherman wanted to provide healthcare for a student and did so out of her own pocket, then I can understand the admiration. However, lying about her relationship to the student to get the insurance company to pick up the tab is insurance fraud, and is not true benevolence.

That action can have widespread consequences to others, such as increased premium costs to other policy holders. Think about it. If it were moral and legal to file a claim on your health insurance by lying about your relationship to the patient, then few of us would need to buy insurance. We could simply find a friend with insurance, and mooch off their policy, the same way many people mooch off of each other’s Netflix accounts. Fewer people paying premiums with more claims means higher premiums, which will drive others off insurance. This is not a good situation.

Again, this is a serious infraction. Yet, many in our society are praising her. “Yeah, she committed insurance fraud, but we should’ve had universal healthcare in the first place.”

“Yeah, she committed insurance fraud, but Congress has failed the American people and should all resign.”

“Yeah, she committed insurance fraud, but at least she stuck it to a greedy corporation.”

I could go on. The “yeah, buts” are in plentiful supply.

Smitherman has since apologized for her actions, citing a lapse in judgment. I’m willing to forgive and move on. Sometimes decisions do sound good when made, and only after do you realize the full ramifications. However, to justify this behavior by pointing out the flaws elsewhere in our system with a series of “yeah, buts” is to concede that we are to remain on a trail of constant injustice until our whole moral fabric is completely unraveled.

Bad decisions cannot bring about good. Immoral decisions can not bring about morality. Darkness cannot drive out light. And sinful attitudes will not bring about revival.

The mission policy proposed by Bro. Marion Reed leading into the 2009 MBA of Texas meeting was a thing of beauty. That policy was ultimately approved by the messengers of the association, which led to a more efficient state missions program. This mission policy, under which we currently operate, upheld the Landmark doctrine of the authority of the local church, provided flexibility in the way mission work is done in the state of Texas, and resulted in more request, but at lower amounts.

Prior to the passage of the current mission policy, the MBA of Texas set salaries for state-supported missionaries, then paid up to 80 percent of that salary. The program mirrored the ABA’s salary structure for interstate missionaries, however, a 10% raise approved by messengers at the 2006 meeting in Longview boosted the salary to a higher amount than the ABA salary. As of the 2009 MBA of Texas meeting, full salary for Texas state missionaries was set at $3,822 per month, with the association paying $3,057.60 toward that amount.

Some missionaries elected to receive half-salary in the amount of $1,911 per month, which allowed them to work secular jobs to obtain health insurance, and reduced the burden on the sponsoring church.

This system had a few disadvantages.

First, the missionary’s salary, paid by the association, was often left out of the mission’s budget. The only part of the missionary’s salary included in the budget was often the 10-20 percent of the salary for which the mission took responsibility. As a result, if a missionary wished to decrease support from the state association, he often had to simultaneously ask the mission or sponsoring church for a raise. Anyone who has been in ministry any length of time can attest to how uncomfortable, and unworkable that proposition is. As a result, missionaries who requested decreased support often did so at their own expense, and thus, few missionaries requested decreased support. The result was that missionaries stayed on salary for extended periods of time (up to 15-20 years).

Secondly, this system blocked struggling churches from being supported, and ceased support for missions that organized. While struggling churches were often added to the program, (as was famously done in Longview to support the construction of a fellowship hall), such a move required the setting aside of mission policy, which invited difficult floor debate.

Thirdly, this system was problematic for missionaries following the “church-planting” model of mission work, as opposed to the traditional model where a mission was an arm of the sponsoring church. Missionaries who followed the “church-planting” model established autonomous churches, bypassing mission status. However, these new churches often struggled financially, hence the need for missionary support.

Wanting to maintain an avenue for traditional mission work, while opening up a way for newer mission techniques, Bro. Reed introduced the current missions policy, which changed the way state missions are oriented.

The former policy was missionary-oriented, meaning the support was intended for the missionary. That is, we paid the missionary’s salary. Seeing the disadvantages of that system, and fearing IRS intervention if the government perceived that the association was paying “salaries,” and therefore had employees, Bro. Reed’s new policy redefined the money sent to missionaries as “support.”

In addition to switching the practice from paying salaries to sending support, Bro. Reed’s new policy changed the orientation from being missionary focused, to project-focused. Sponsoring churches were no longer required to recommend a missionary. They could recommend a project, or (before a recent change to the policy) a ministry such as Berean Bible Study, or Texas Mission Development.

Amounts of support were no longer defined by the associational policy. Instead, missionaries and sponsoring churches calculated a need, and requested the appropriate support from the association. The association then had the prerogative to either approve, or decline the request, and the policy was written to show that a vote to decline the request in no way denigrated the legitimacy of the project.

When the new policy was approved by the messengers of the Missionary Baptist Association of Texas, several pastors told me that they feared that missionaries would request “lavish” levels of support. Looking at the history of the new policy, that fear has not been realized, as missionary requests are frequently well below the former “full salary” designation. In fact, of the seven requests that were approved at the 2018 MBA of Texas meeting, only one came close to the former “full salary” amount, and that request undercut the former “full salary” amount by $200. The average request for state support comes in at $1,864.29, which is even less than the former “half-salary” amount.

It should be noted that the missionaries and sponsoring churches, once freed to determine their needs and purposes for the support, were able to request lesser amounts from the association. And with three significantly reducing their requests over the past two years, it is demonstrated that the new system actually promotes the growth and maturity of the mission projects.

I say all of that to remind, and encourage our association, that our missions program is strong, and well-designed. If sponsoring churches and missions utilize the program as it is intended, then we will see new works started which will become self-supporting in shorter time frames than under the previous policy. However, this requires an understanding of how the program works. While one need not obtain a Ph. D. in missions to figure it all out, there are two keys to remember regarding our current mission policy.

The association does not pay salaries. Years of seeing missionaries request “full salary” and “half salary” has programmed a lot of messengers, and well, missionaries and sponsoring pastors, to see state support as a salary to the missionary. This is no longer the intent of the program. The association does not pay “salaries,” and over the next few meetings, the association would do well to replace the word “salaries” with “support” in some of the more recent changes to the policy.

The association supports “projects.” While the policy is worded to allow a sponsoring church to recommend a missionary or a mission work, it must be noted that the sponsoring church is the entity requesting the support, and receiving the help. This may seem like an obsessive attention to a minor detail, but that detail can be the difference maker in whether a work progresses toward becoming self-supporting.

The beauty of those two keys is that, by designating the associational support as “support” and not “salary,” the association’s support becomes a line-item in the budget. Thus, that support can decrease without directly impacting the missionary’s salary, thus moving the mission toward self-supporting status.

With all of this information, let’s explore how a new mission work can become self-supporting more quickly under this system. If I were starting a new work, here’s what I would do. These steps only address the financial end of mission work. We’ll study the spiritual end of mission work in another post.

Determine the financial need. What would my personal needs be regarding salary? Housing? What would the new work need in terms of rent? Utilities? Outreach materials? Marketing resources? How much funding would be needed to acquire property and build a building? Or is it possible to purchase an existing building?

Based on that need, I would set a budget, including start-up expenses for the first year.

I would do deputation for one full year to raise funds to meet the needs of that budget.

I would then set my request from the association according to the need of that budget after direct support from sister churches was factored in.

Each year, a new budget would be set, factoring in offerings received from the mission, offerings received from sister churches, and support received from the association. As the offerings from the mission increased, the request for support from the association would decrease.

This trend would hopefully continue until there was no longer a need for associational support.

We have employed this technique at Life Point Baptist Church, and as a result, decreased our request for support by $500 last year, and anticipate decreasing our request again this next year. This system is encouraged by our current mission policy, and judging by the number of decreased requests for support, I’d say it’s working.

So, take heart, sister churches of the Missionary Baptist Association of Texas. We have a great missions program. Let’s utilize it the way it was intended, and let’s support it so that our current missionaries can remain on the field, and so that new works can be started.

For the past 10 years, I have been blessed to be a state missionary supported by the Missionary Baptist Association of Texas. In the past 10 years, I have seen a robust missions fund be exhausted by new and continued requests for support, and I have seen that fund rebuilt by God’s provision through the generosity of the churches of the Missionary Baptist Association of Texas. I have seen us go from “We have all this money and no missionaries” to “We have all these missionaries and no money,” to “let’s try to keep that from happening again.”

Bro. Curtis Gilbert is right to try to shore up the mission policy for the betterment of the program. I fear, however, that some policy is being put forth on common misconceptions. I will put forth statements made at this past week’s meeting, match them to the misconception, then address the misconception.

“We have missionaries on the field for 14 years.” This is false. This has been a problem in the past, but has not been a problem since the passage of the new mission policy. The state missionary who has been supported the longest by MBA of Texas is myself, and I have been supported for 10 years. We started this work from scratch 10 years ago. We had no property, no money, no congregation and no connections in the community. This work was not started by a split, and we didn’t obtain a “launch team” from another congregation.

Over the past 10 years, we have evangelized this community, acquired resources by raising support from our sister churches (both individually and through the MBA of Texas, and associational ministries), discipled those who came to know Christ through our ministry, and reached many that had been isolated in their faith. As a result, we saw a congregation rapidly grow over the first 5 years.

Then, Satan entered in through a few individuals, we experienced some conflict, and we had some move out of town. In 2014, we basically had to start over. We did. We utilized the resources God had provided through the MBA of Texas, built a building, and God built a new congregation. I believe we are within reach of going self-supporting.

We went through some hard times, but the MBA of Texas was with us every step of the way. Thanks to the MBA’s generous and patient support, we were able to recover and we will have a local church here in Early, Tex. We could very well be off support after this year.

I share that story to show that when a missionary is on support for a lengthy period of time, there is often a back story to that situation.

“We need to get our missionaries and sponsoring churches to refocus.” This statement indicates that the state missionaries are not focused on their work, or don’t know what they’re doing, or cannot assess whether God is still in the work. I don’t get to fellowship with all of the state missionaries, but I see 3 or 4 of them regularly at Southwest Association mission rallies. Their mission projects and ministries are all they think about.

When things fell apart with my work in 2013 and 2014, I spent much time in prayer searching whether God was finished with the work or not. Absent of a call to leave the field, I found that God still wanted the work to continue. At that point, to have left the field would have been disobedient to God, would have resulted in the waste of associational resources, and would have left those who remained in the congregation without pastoral leadership. It would have (in my case) been irresponsible and selfish. So, we continued. The “refocusing” that was called for is happening.

“We need (annual reductions in support) for accountability.” Actually, that idea does not create accountability. Accountability is the setting of goals, the formulation of a plan to reach those goals, and the direction to keep the missionary on task to accomplish that plan. That responsibility falls on the sponsoring church.

Regarding the reductions in missionary support, I actually think it’s a good idea. That is the goal, to increase offerings from the mission while decreasing support from the state association. That’s why at least 3 missionaries I talked to at the meeting reduced support. It’s also why we reduced our request last year by $500/month, or 25%.

The reductions sought by the proposed (and failed) change to the mission policy are already happening on a voluntary basis. Many times, these voluntary reductions are happening at greater percentages than the policy change proposed. Furthermore, these reductions are being taken from requests that are significantly smaller than the historic “full salary” designation.

Brethren, I hope this post has not come across as defensive or angry. It is neither. I am merely trying to encourage you that our state missions program is strong. We have good men on the field who are laboring for the Lord, who wish to do so at minimal expense to the association and our sister churches, who wish to organize as soon as possible. These men are sufficiently funded by the generous support of MBA of Texas churches, who have never failed to answer the call to keep missionaries on the field.

As we look toward the 2019 meeting, I know that the mission policy and the program will be on the minds of many who will look to make improvements over the next few years. This is a good thing. I am blessed that we have so many pastors and churches concerned about state missions that they want to make sure the policy is optimized for a robust missions program. My only desire is that the changes are made with the right perspective, and factually correct information, and not on misconceptions based on anecdotal instances that are now past, and are no longer impacting the work.

For the past 20 years, the world has steadily been changing at a rapid pace, so much so that the younger generations have associated change with life. For a person younger than 40, the absence of change represents stagnation and death.

Today, students are either being trained for careers that won’t exist in 20 years, or they are being trained for careers that don’t exist yet. Their lives have so been defined by change that they aren’t even bothered by that fact.

For those of us north of 40, however, change brings uncertainty. It’s a new world, new parameters, and often, we struggle to understand the path forward. Therefore, we feel insecure, and we fear. Even the youth can experience massive personal changes that make them uncertain of their future.

Recently, I experienced a career change when I went from a stable position in a company where I had plateau’ed, to a performance-based position in an upstart. My new position involved selling a new product from a new company of which many of my clients would not be familiar. It was scary.

To find peace in my heart about the change, and the direction in which my life is moving, I returned to an old friend that has helped me through similar transitions in the past, the book of Psalms.

Each day, I pray that God will guide me, and that I will not only honor and glorify Him in my new position, but that I will also be a proper representative of Him. Furthermore, I pray that He protects my testimony, and that He steers me away from the pitfalls that could discredit my ministry.

Then, I read one of the psalms.

Today’s passage was Psalm 37, which includes the very famous verse 5, “Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass.”

All too often we misread this verse to say, “Decide what you want to do, then ask God to bless it, and He will.”

However, if we look to the preceding verses, we see that there is a far more blessed, and effective, approach to applying this verse to our lives.

Psalm 37:3 tells us to trust the Lord. Psalm 37:4 tells us to delight in the Lord. Psalm 37:4 tells us that if we delight in the Lord, He will give us the desires of our hearts.

Now, in reading and properly applying those two verses, we understand that our first priority is to seek the Lord, trust the Lord, and bring our values and desires in line with His. Once we do this, He gives us those desires.

Then, we commit our way to the Lord. In committing our way to the Lord, we are not simply naming a blessing we want and claiming it. Instead, we are committing to serve Him, honor Him and glorify Him through our “way.” We are committing our way unto Him by bringing our way into alignment with Him. Once we do that, He works His will in the situation, and we know that God works all things to our benefit.

There is no safer place to be than the will of God.

So today, if you live with anxiety, return to the scriptures. I recommend the Psalms in times like these. Read the scriptures. Trust the scriptures. Assess what God wants you to do, and what you can do to honor Him. Pray. Then, put your assessment into action, and trust that God holds you in the palm of His hand, that no weapon formed against you will prosper, and regardless of the outcome, you will win.

There I sat across the table from a man who would determine whether my qualifications were strong enough to warrant a position within his company.

“What brings you to Brownwood?” He asked.

“I am coming here to start a church to reach the lost and unchurched of the Brown County area,” I said. I know that talking about church planting, state mission work, and religious work to someone in a secular setting like a business meeting or job interview can sound insane, but I had to answer the question honestly. Besides, if I couldn’t tell a potential employer my plans, then would I be able to effectively share the Gospel to the general public?

My future employer then joked that I was another preacher who thought he could convert the city of Brownwood, Tex.

To those outside the church, I can understand how insane it must seem. When the general public thinks about missions, they think about soup kitchens and clothing drives for impoverished people living in a desert overseas. They don’t think about ministers taking to the streets of their hometowns preaching the Gospel, desperately trying to reach the lost they pass by on a daily basis.

So, when you tell someone that you are a state missionary sent to a town that already has a few dozen churches in the same denomination, and hundreds of others, they probably wonder if you are really a scam artist or cult leader.

This type of thinking is not limited to the lost and unchurched, either. Often, pastors, ministers and denominational leaders will evaluate the legitimacy of a mission project based on how many other churches of like faith are located on the field of labor.

In both scenarios, you may hear someone say, “We already have too many churches.” Others will say that the presence of so many churches dishonors Christ, because it shows that Christians cannot get along. After all, shouldn’t we want to come together in one large glorious church and be one big happy family? In a perfect world, maybe so. In the perfect world that God will create after He destroys sin once and for all, we will.

Until then, however, we live in a fallen world.

When I came to Brownwood, I was immediately introduced to a few churches, and dozens of individuals who were faithfully serving the Lord in spirit and truth who worked tirelessly to reach the lost. Some helped us get Life Point started. Upon meeting these dedicated servants of the Lord, I wondered why God would call me to a place where so much Gospel activity was already occurring.

Through time and experience, God taught me that He called me to Brownwood because, despite the best efforts of so many, there were still those who needed the Gospel, who would respond to the Gospel.

Simply put, the more workers for the harvest, the greater the harvest.

In business, there’s a concept called market penetration, which is the measure of the sales or adoption of a product in a particular market. Companies work to increase market penetration by increasing promotions, offering new outlets to purchase their product, and diversifying their efforts to reach different demographics within the market.

Subway restaurants drew a few odd stares when they announced the opening of a new store inside a megachurch. (That’s a different subject for a different day). In explaining the move, Subway representatives simply said, “If we think we can sell sandwiches in a particular location, we’re going to open a store in that location.”

If you look around, you’ll notice that there are Subway locations everywhere. A small town near my home that cannot support a traditional restaurant has a Subway.

The same tactic has been employed by McDonald’s, 7-11, and the Southern Baptist Convention. A location on every corner penetrates the market, and increases “sales.”

Yet, no one ever complains of there being too many McDonald’s restaurants, 7-11s, or Subways. They do, however, complain of too many churches.

Why? It’s Spiritual.

The Missionary Baptist Association of Texas holds its messenger meeting in November. Several local and area associations will meet between now and then. As we discuss missions at these meetings, whether as part of the formal proceedings, or informally around the table of fellowship, let’s not discuss missions in terms of how many churches exist in how many towns. Let’s discuss missions in terms of how we are penetrating these fields of labor with the Gospel.

I have found that in whatsoever setting I have found myself, I am surrounded by parenting experts. Some days, it seems that everyone knows what to do with my children but me. In the course of some of these enlightened discussions, bits of foolishness disguised as universal wisdom tend to surface time and time again. It is my endeavor to expose these lies for what they are, and to reassure you that your God-given reaction to these things is justified.

1. Bad decisions are a rite of passage.

“Oh, we all did that when we were that age.”

“All teenagers do it.”

“It’s really no big deal.”

Whether the topic is alcohol consumption, experimentation with marijuana, sexual experimentation, truancy, shop-lifting, criminal mischief, or basic defiance, today’s street-side parenting experts will excuse your child’s behavior by explaining that you did the same thing as a child, and you turned out fine.

In fact, some have even argued that these bad decisions are so normal, that it is impossible to teach your child to abstain from them. Therefore, your job as parent is to make sure that your child makes a bad decision in the safest way possible.

Think about that last statement. The so-called “parenting experts” that surround us, and constantly barrage us with parenting advice, want us to let our children make bad life choices, but in a safe manner.

Nowhere is this mentality more prominent than in the debate over sex-education in the public schools. There are those who advocate for abstinence education. Others belittle that approach, saying that kids are “going to do it” anyway, so we need to make sure they have condoms and access to abortion. (Never-mind the failure rate with condoms, the potential for sexual abuse, or the regret and emotional trauma caused by bad experiences).

You also see this mentality present with parents who provide alcohol to teenagers under the guise of “providing a safe environment” for underage drinking, or drug use.

We experimented. We made mistakes. Our children, too, will experiment and make mistakes. It’s a rite of passage. Part of growing up. It’s normal. Hogwash and horse-feathers!

Looking back on my teenage indiscretions, I regret many of them. I made choices concerning alcohol and substance abuse that I regret. I wish I had begun adulthood with a healthier understanding of sexuality. I have regrets.

Scripture speaks to this in Romans 6:21, “What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death.”

In our youthful indiscretions, what fruit do we have in those things, of which we are now ashamed? Should we resign ourselves to the idea that our children, too, will make the same mistakes and have the same regrets as we?

I say, Nay! Nay!

Our job as parents is not to make sure our kids have the same experiences we had, nor is our job to navigate our children through the same pitfalls we fell into as kids. Our job as parents is to use our experience to our kids’ benefit. Our job is to steer our children away from the pitfalls we fell into, drawing on our experiences and teaching our kids to make the decisions we didn’t.

Setting your children up for a better life than you had used to be a virtue. It’s time we restore that virtue.

2. I have to allow my child to make their own mistakes, and learn from them.

This lie comes from the same mentality as the 1st lie… that bad decisions are inevitable, therefore we should teach kids to make them in a safer manner.

Bad decisions may be inevitable, but our job as parents is to warn our kids against them, steer them away from those bad decisions, and hold them accountable for their decisions, and for the behavior leading to those bad decisions.

Ephesians 6:4 tells us to bring our children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. The meanings of these words carry the notion that our role as parents (and more specifically, the role of fathers), is to constantly warn children against sin and rebellion. This means to warn them, not only of God’s consequences, but of the worldly consequences of sinful choices.

To stand idly by while our kids “make their own mistakes” is an abdication of a God-given responsibility, and a rebellion against a God-given commandment to parent our children.

3. I have to be my child’s friend, or, my child is my best friend.

If you’re looking for validation or affirmation from your child, you’re doing life wrong.

Your job as parent is to prepare your child to launch into the world, not to establish your child as a lifelong companion and confidant. Your role as parent involves giving your child the tools they need to succeed in life, spiritually, economically and socially. Your child is not there to meet your needs. You’re there to meet your child’s needs. And what your child needs from you is not another friend or buddy (honestly, they should be making those from kids in their own age-group), but rather the guidance and leadership that will prepare them for the next phase in their life.

This involves discipline. This involves tough choices. This involves denying them things that you really want to give them.

This is a tough road, and it’s not for the faint of heart.

Scripture says “foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction will drive it far from him.” For your child’s safety, survival and betterment, you must use the rod of correction to drive the foolishness from your child’s heart.

And while that verse is often associated with spanking, the rod of correction can take on many forms. It can be a mode of punishment, or, like the shepherd’s rod, it can be a guiding force.

The rod of correction can come in the form of grounding, lost privileges, chores, consequences, earned privileges, and earned rewards.

The rod of correction, that is, discipline, is not merely punishment. It is the shaping of proper behaviors and attitudes within your child. And no matter how positive you try to make it, it will not be an easy road for your child.

They will tell you they hate you. They will call you the worst parents ever. They will say they wish they had never been born. They will threaten to run away. If your personal validation requires positive feedback from your children, this is where you will implode and fail. You must be strong. You must know your role. You must remember the goal.

In the short term, you will find yourself at odds with your child, and your feelings hurt. In the long-term, you are shaping the world view, moral character, and if done Biblically, the Spiritual fortitude of your child. In the long-term, your child is better off for it, and will love you for it.

To borrow a cliche, “They’ll thank you someday.”

Okay, maybe they won’t thank you. But then again, that’s not why you parent in the first place.

4. I want to give my child everything I didn’t have.

This is a materialistic mindset. Your goal is not to give your child a better material life, but a better start in life, and a better life overall.

If you didn’t make the team, weren’t elected class president, or weren’t accepted into Harvard, do not make it your mission to make sure your child gets all of that.

If you didn’t have your own car in school, don’t make it your mission to buy your kid a car.

Make it your mission to equip your child for adulthood.

5. My child deserves the best.

Yes, and no.

Your child deserves your best. However, your child does not deserve the best the world has to offer. That has to be earned.

A better mindset is that your child needs to learn to make the best of what they have. If you can teach them that, then they are head and shoulders above the rest.

The conclusion of the matter.

Parenting is an 18-20 year journey full of ups and downs, hills and valleys, roadside raiders and landmines. It’s not for the faint of heart. If it were easy, Dr. James Dobson would be running a hotdog stand in Anaheim.

There are times you won’t know what to do. There are times you will make mistakes. There are times you will wonder why God trusted you with your children in the first place.

God didn’t make a mistake. Trust Him, trust His model for parenthood. And reject the lies that the world throws at you regarding parenthood.

Love your child. Prepare them for adulthood. In the end, you will see a blessing.

Are there any other parenting misconceptions out there? Feel free to post them below. God bless you.